


Evolution Control

by Marcus_S_Lazarus



Series: The Twilight Storm [15]
Category: Doctor Who, Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:35:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23548507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marcus_S_Lazarus/pseuds/Marcus_S_Lazarus
Summary: Visiting a unique human colony, the Doctor and Bella find themselves facing a unique threat in the form of the last remnants of a long-gone civilisation.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor & Bella Swan
Series: The Twilight Storm [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694503
Kudos: 2





	1. Primator

"You know," the Doctor mused as he adjusted the TARDIS's controls, in a manner that I'd come to recognise as him choosing a specific location rather than the TARDIS's usual random journeys, "one thing I've always liked about human beings is your absolute refusal to give up on a large scale."

"Really?" I said, grateful for Doctor's emphasis on our large-scale accomplishments; in a strange way, it felt like him reaffirming that he didn't hold my near-suicide attempt when we'd first met 'against me', as he indirectly acknowledged that event without drawing too much attention to it.

"Mmm; you stumble sometimes as individuals, but the species as a whole always manages to pick itself up again later," the Doctor said, nodding in confirmation as he continued to adjust the settings on the console before he looked at me with a smile. "Which is why I think you'll like this place."

Realising that the sound I'd come to recognise as the TARDIS materialising had stopped, I indicated the door with a hopeful smile, waiting for the Doctor to nod in confirmation before I hurried out of the ship, to be greeted by a breathtaking view.

The actual town we were standing in was simple enough in design, putting me in mind of basic holiday villages used at resorts to give people separate accommodation from the main hotel. Most of the houses gave the impression that they'd been assembled at fairly short notice, with only a few buildings looking like they were more than just four walls and another bit of metal slapped on top for a roof. My eyes were particularly drawn to one large building near the centre of the town, with all kinds of satellite dishes and other advanced stuff on its roof that put me in mind of military bases I'd seen in movies back on Earth, but the building was soon forgotten as I took in the view above the town.

The sky was dominated by a large yellow sun, but there was a smaller blue sun just behind it, along with something smaller that I could only call a planet because it wasn't glowing and seemed too large to just be a moon. I could see what looked like walls scattered around the outskirts of the gathering of houses, as though something had been erected and then torn down, but thoughts on the walls were quickly forgotten as I took in the scale of the plants and life-forms all around us, trees reaching up to a height that looked like it could surpass most skyscrapers back home. As I looked more closely, I saw that a few trees on the outskirts of the town actually had small windows and doors carved into them, and I could even glimpse something moving around inside the windows, but I was too far away to make out any clear details…

"The planet Primator," the Doctor said, grinning as he walked out behind me. "It's been an active colony for a few years, but it's only reached this stage in the last few months; there were various problems with the terraforming projects that delayed colonisation en masse, but it was such an astronomical breakthrough that scientists couldn't resist the possibilities of living here."

"Astronomical breakthrough?" I asked curiously.

"Contrary to what you might think from Lucas's work, it's actually rather hard to find a location where a planet can safely orbit more than one sun and be inhabitable," the Doctor explained. "Normally the intense gravity of the stars will tear the planet apart even if it finds an orbit that won't destroy anything that walks on it without some kind of artificial protection, but there are a few rare cases where planets manage to find the 'goldilocks zone' where everything's just right for it to exist without being destroyed, even in a stellar location like this one. In the case of Primator, it received its name because it was literally in the prime 'goldilocks zone' for any colony; not only does it maintain an atmosphere capable of supporting life without too heavy a gravitational pull, but it's so perfectly positioned between the two suns that it's held in place without actually moving in an orbit, meaning that it maintains the current peak temperature throughout the year without the inconvenience of a winter."

"Really?" I said, smiling as I took in the planet around me with new fascination at this news. Astronomy might not have been something I was particularly interested in when I was in Forks, but spending time on other planets was certainly one way to increase your interest in the wider universe, and learning just how unique this sky was made it all the more interesting.

"Of course, it wasn't as simple as just landing here and setting this place up," the Doctor explained. "They had to install an atmospheric shield to limit the radiation getting through from the suns so that it wouldn't be fatal to everyone on the planet after the first colonists nearly died of skin cancer, but that's the point of us coming here now; it gives us a chance to appreciate everything they overcame to reach this point."

"Ah," I said, my mood suddenly dimmed at the knowledge that people had died before this place came together.

"It's like Roanoke, in a way," the Doctor continued. "The first colony there may have completely vanished, but that didn't stop people coming to the new world later on."

"On that topic," I said, recalling an old history lesson on the lost colony the Doctor had just mentioned and deciding to use the opportunity to satisfy my curiosity, "do _you_ know what happened to Roanoke?"

"Oh, yeah; they were abducted by alien arms dealers as part of a plan to sabotage a conference being held on Earth," the Doctor said with a shrug. "Most of them were all killed when the alien race that took them tried to activate the bombs to destroy an important interstellar peace conference, but my allies were able to stop that by keeping the detonator fragment away until the colonists could be relocated to the saboteurs' ship."

"You _killed_ them-?" I began.

"They were already dying of radiation sickness long before I arrived," the Doctor clarified, looking at me with a grim expression as he recounted these long-ago events. "Even with advanced technology, I couldn't have done anything for them by that stage…"

He sighed sadly at the memory for a moment before he smiled and indicated his surroundings. "Anyway, that's in the past; right now, with this colony becoming a thriving centre for astrological research, they won't mind a few additional guests, so shall we take a walk?"

"Why not?" I grinned at the Doctor.

I wasn't sure if I'd understand most of what was being worked on here, but that didn't mean I couldn't enjoy the location…


	2. Colonial Exploration

As we walked down the hillside to approach the town, the Doctor and I fell into a comfortable silence as we took in our surroundings. With so many of our trips resulting in us running for our lives almost as soon as we arrived at our destinations, I was enjoying the chance to just relax and take in our surroundings. The walk from the TARDIS to the town had been the most relaxing stroll I'd had in nature since I couldn't even remember, allowing me to appreciate the planet's natural beauty.

In some ways, it struck me as a strange combination of the woods of Forks and the images I'd seen of the Amazon rainforest, with most of the trees not looking too different from what I'd seen so often back in Forks while including a warmth and humidity that was definitely new, to say nothing of the occasional glimpses I caught of the local animal life; I saw something that looked a bit like a six-legged cat climbing a tree, and a glance up revealed a four-winged bird flying over the trees.

"What's with the extra limbs?" I asked, indicating the tree where the cat-creature had been climbing.

"Oh, the locals?" the Doctor said, smiling at me. "Yes, it's an interesting quirk of biology on this planet; most of the creatures developed additional limbs and an expanded nervous system to help them get around faster, after this planet's equivalent of the dinosaurs never fell victim to the kind of asteroid strike that stopped them back on Earth."

"So… what _did_ kill them?" I asked curiously

"One of the many things these research teams are trying to find out," the Doctor noted, shaking his head reflectively before he shrugged and smiled, evidently putting that question aside for the moment. "Anyway, let's get on with this, shall we?"

Stuck for anything better to do or say in this situation, I walked after the Doctor as he approached what seemed to be the town's main gate. Despite what I'd heard about this place, it was only 'guarded' by a single man standing in a small cubicle, staring silently out at the landscape in front of him, starting in surprise when he saw the Doctor and I approaching.

"Ah, hello," the Doctor smiled, pulling out the psychic paper and showing it to the man. "Doctor John Smith, and this is my student, Bella Swan; we're here conducting a survey of the work being carried out on the Primator Research Facility, and are to be given full access to all scientific work being carried out here."

"Of-of course, sir," the man said, standing to attention and nodding firmly at the Doctor before waving the two of us into the small city.

"That was… simple," I noted, looking at the Doctor in surprise.

"The advantage of this place being a primarily scientific outpost; there's nothing here that anyone would want to steal for weapons purposes, so the guards don't need to be as alert as they might be in other places," the Doctor explained. "He's mainly here to keep track of any research teams that go out in case they take too long coming back; the planet might be uninhabited by sentient life, but accidents happen, after all."

With that said, the Doctor turned to head towards one of the larger buildings, leaving me to follow him as he casually walked through the door, revealing a large room filled with all kinds of strange-looking equipment as various men examined what I could only assume were the read-outs of whatever they were analysing. The various displays, including what looked like holographic images of the suns, might not mean anything to me beyond them looking cool, but I could appreciate how scientists might find the astrophysics behind their balance fascinating, and a few other screens depicted what looked like DNA helixes…

"Ah, hello!" the Doctor grinned, waving a hand at the assembled people before us. "I'm Doctor John Smith, and this is my assistant, Bella Swan; we were just passing by and decided to drop in to see how things were going."

"You just… dropped in?" one of the men said, looking at him in surprise. "We don't really operate on any of the usual space routes-"

"I avoid the usual space routes; I find it's more interesting that way," the Doctor explained, smiling casually as he walked in. "I've heard some fascinating things about this place, and when I realised that I was in the area, I couldn't resist the temptation; landed in an empty meadow a short distance away in case my ship interrupted anything important, but since I'm here, I'd like to see what you're working on."

"You came all this way… just to take a look at our work?" another man said, this one notably older than the first speaker with a manner that suggested that he was in some kind of authority in this lab. "I'm aware that we're taking up some resources-"

"I'm not here to do anything with your funding; I just want to see what's going on here," the Doctor explained, walking up to the holographic display of the suns as he put his glasses on. "I have to admit, your projection of the gravitational stresses experienced by these suns is exceptional…"

As the Doctor continued speaking, his words rapidly became too complicated for me to follow half of what he was talking about, and the rest of the scientists soon started following his example, exchanging long words and discussing complex terms that I'd never heard before.

It didn't take long for me to conclude that staying here would just jeopardise the Doctor's cover story more than help anything. I could appreciate that the work they were doing here was fascinating and interesting, but I just didn't understand half of what they were talking about, and the Doctor couldn't afford to spend time answering my questions; if I was meant to be his 'student', I should know enough about this sort of thing…

"Uh… I'm just… going to… look around?" I said, awkwardly indicating the door we'd entered by, lost for anything else I could say that didn't sound weak. After the Doctor had nodded in approval of my decision, the rest of the scientists too caught up in their discussion to register my request, I walked out of the lab as discreetly as possible before I began to walk around the village, smiling slightly as I took in everything around me.

This place might be an established colony world several light-years from Earth- I wasn't going to consider the specifics given how far we must be, so it was easier to just consider it as generic light-years without worrying about specific figures- but it was kind of fascinating to see how some things remained the same even after so many centuries.

We might have advanced across the universe, but even this colony still had traces of home; what looked like a sort of library in one building, a screen displaying what I presumed was local news ('local' referring to activity in this part of the galaxy), shops selling some sort of plantlife that could be vegetables or just flowers…

I didn't know precisely how far in the future we were right now, but it was somehow reassuring to see that we hadn't lost the things that made us so fundamentally human after all this time. We might be centuries from my time and unknown light-years from Earth, but the human race was still recognisable; it had just grown out over the years. After everything that we'd been through as a species and all the fears that were being expressed that the planet would become uninhabitable before we could leave it, I felt that I particularly appreciated it when my travels with the Doctor gave me the chance to see evidence that we could make it beyond the fears so many had.

"Uh… hello?" a voice said, prompting me to turn and see a young man looking uncertainly at me, dressed in a simple white and blue uniform and looking like he was only a couple of years older than me rather than the decade or so of experience I'd seen in the lab. "Sorry, but I don't think I've seen you before…"

"You wouldn't have; I… I'm just passing through," I said, smiling politely at him as I held out my hand; I hadn't been expecting to find someone this close to my own age here, but it might be nice to have someone to talk to. "Bella Swan; I'm here with… Doctor John Smith."

"John Smith?" the young man repeated, smiling slightly at me. "You're serious?"

"It's a perfectly reasonable name," I replied with a brief shrug, allowing myself an embarrassed chuckle as though I was used to hearing that kind of thing about the Doctor. "And you are?"

"Oh, Andy Bennett," he said, still smiling as he shook my hand. "What's Doctor Smith's speciality?"

"He has a broad range; he's studied pretty much everything to some degree," I explained; I might have never asked precisely what the Doctor specialised in, but I knew from experience that he had a great deal of knowledge of a variety of fields. "How about you?"

"The evolutionary and biology of this planet, mainly," Andy explained casually.

"Oh yeah, I've heard that there was some interesting details about this place," I said, as I began to walk along the street alongside Andy. "How's that coming along for you?"

"It's offered some fascinating anomalies, really," Andy explained, looking at me with an enthusiastic grin. "I mean, it's unique enough to find a whole planet that evolved this quickly, but then there's-"

The sound of something yelling interrupted him before he could say anything else, leaving me to hurry towards the town's entrance as soon as I'd identified it as the source of the screams. As I ran towards the gates the Doctor and I had entered by only moments ago, I was relieved to see no sign of gunfire, even if the loud yells made it clear that _something_ was going on here that was out of the norm.

Approaching the gates, I saw three men leaning against the nearest buildings while the guard stared at them in horror, but what happened wasn't clear until I came in closer and saw their faces. Somehow, even although they seemed like they were human at a distance, something about them didn't seem right…

When I got in closer and registered their enlarged eyes, their skin twisting around their faces and what looked like claws emerging from their fingers, I didn't take long to decide what I had to do; something like this definitely merited the Doctor's attention.

Why was it we could never go anywhere nice without discovering some kind of weird threat?


	3. Evolution Acceleration

"Doctor!" I called out as I ran back into the lab, looking apologetically at the scientists before I focused on my friend. "We have a problem!"

"What?" the Doctor asked, looking sharply at me, his initial enthusiastic grin shifting to his more professional manner.

"Some people just came through the gate, and they're… well, I don't know _what_ they are, but it definitely isn't normal!" I explained, suddenly wishing I'd found more even as I knew that the Doctor would have wanted an update as promptly as possible. "Their eyes are changing and something… I think they're growing _claws_ -"

"Claws?" one of the scientists repeated, even as the Doctor turned and ran for the door, leaving me to turn around and hurry after him as the scientists stared after him in confusion. I hadn't been keeping careful track of my route to and from the gate, but you didn't need vampiric memory to find your way around a place this small, and I soon found myself gate at the gate, with the three men I'd seen earlier still lying around the ground in varying states. Since I'd first seen them, a couple of them had grown what I could only think of as fur around their faces, and their eyes had all grown disturbingly larger, but only one of them had actual claws while the other two just seemed to have sharper nails.

"Oh no…" the Doctor said, crouching down to examine one of the men more closely.

"Are you Doctor Smith?" another voice asked, prompting me to look up and take in Andy Bennett as he examined one of the other 'victims' of whatever was happening.

"That's me," the Doctor said, nodding briefly at my new associate. "And you are?"

"Andy Bennett; I work here," Andy said, before his attention returned to the man immediately in front of him, the unconscious body constantly twitching as more hair seemed to grow from his face. "Can you… what's _happening_ to them?"

"I have a few ideas…" the Doctor mused, pulling out the sonic screwdriver and running it over the body lying in front of him before holding the device to his ear. "Mmm…"

"What is it?" I asked, focusing on the Doctor even as Andy looked curiously at the two of us.

"Interesting…" the Doctor mused, shaking his head thoughtfully as he looked between the screwdriver and the man lying in front of him.

"What?" I asked. "You know what's mutating them?"

"That's just it," the Doctor said grimly. "These people aren't mutating, Bella; they're _evolving_."

"Evolving?" I repeated, looking at the people lying around us in surprise. "But… _this_ quickly?"

"Well," Andy said, looking uncertainly between the Doctor and I, "I've always known that Primator's evolutionary history was unusual… but we're not even native to this planet; it shouldn't-"

"You're not going to get anywhere if you start dismissing what's happening in front of you just because you think it's impossible," the Doctor interjected firmly, staring back at the twisting body. "I've seen forced mutations, and this is too specific to be a mutation; who were these men?"

"What?" Andy asked.

"What did they do here?" I repeated, guessing the meaning of the Doctor's question. "How could they have been… exposed to whatever did this?"

"They're…" Andy said, looking at them for a moment before he looked up at the Doctor. "They're probably some of the mining team; we did have a survey team out this morning…"

"Just as I thought," the Doctor said, nodding in confirmation. "That explains the nature of this evolution, anyway; the miners evolve into moles to make them better diggers…"

He paused for a moment, tapping his chin with the screwdriver as he stared at the men. "Now, where have I heard that before…?"

"You've seen this before?" I asked, looking sharply at my friend.

"Not this _exactly_ …" the Doctor began, staring at the twisting miners for a moment before he shook his head and stood up. "We have to get these people to a hospital; we're not helping anyone leaving them lying around here."

A couple of hours later, the Doctor and I were standing in the research station's small medical wing, looking anxiously at the miners as they lay in bed, surrounding by the base's small team of doctors and various other biologists (Apparently the usual medical staff were fairly small in number as this place was meant to be relatively safe).

"So… you think this is some sort of… accelerated evolution?" one of the doctors asked, looking sceptically at the Doctor.

"It's possible," the Doctor shrugged. "I've encountered all kinds of forced mutations in my travels; accelerated evolution isn't as much of a stretch as some of the things I've seen."

"But if this is _evolution_ ," another doctor pointed out, indicating a miner who had been drugged with anaesthesia when he began to scratch at his face with his emerging claws, "why does it… _hurt_ them?"

"That's one of the problems," the Doctor explained, studying the readout on the nearest monitor. "Whatever triggered this is only evolving _parts_ of the body at an accelerated rate, for reasons I'm still working on; maybe it's a deliberate attack, maybe someone designed this thing for a different species…"

He shook his head in frustration. "In any case, what matters right now is that these people are undergoing partial evolution and we have no way of even working out what the problem is…"

"Partial evolution?" I repeated uncertainly. "What could that do?"

"Take this man here as an example," the Doctor said, indicating the man on the bed beside him, whose eyes were now at least twice their original size. "His eyes are evolving so that he can cope with increased darkness and take in more while underground than the average human being, but one of the reasons he's collapsed is that his brain hasn't actually evolved the new sensory organs necessary to process that incoming data."

"Oh," I said grimly, remembering Edward's old story about how vampires used more of their brains than humans did. "So… you're saying that they're essentially old computers trying to run modern software?"

"And that's not the worst of it," a man I recognised as the head physician said, walking into the room with a grim expression.

"What?" one of the female doctors said, looking anxiously at the head of the hospital. "What's wrong?"

"We've been checking the results of the blood tests back in the main medical scanner, and… well, it's worrying," the man explained. "We haven't identified the cause, but this mining team have been contaminated with some kind of radiation… and when they came back into the facility, they exposed us all to it."

I could only blink at that news.

"We've been exposed to it?" the Doctor asked sharply. "To what extent?"

"Minor so far, and there's no suggestion that it's going to cause any of the traditional complications, but if it caused these, I think we'd almost prefer tumours," the physician said, looking grimly at the nearest patient. "Considering that we don't know what caused this or the extent to which it can affect us, I think it's safe to say that we should consider this entire facility to be in quarantine until we can work out what's happened. I've already spoken to the commander to activate the warning beacon and ensure that nobody comes here until we've sorted this out."

"And how long will that take?" I asked, trying not to look at the men lying on the beds around us; the thought that something like that could happen to _us_ …

The doctor's grim expression answered my question better than words ever could.

"We don't know."

I tried to resist the urge to panic as I looked at the unconscious bodies lying around us, their forms still twisting and reshaping themselves as I watched.

The thought that everyone here would soon be going through something like _that_ … when we didn't even know what was causing it…

I might have wanted to be a vampire once upon a time, but there was a difference between a controlled change and whatever _this_ was.

What would we become?


	4. Recollection

As the Doctor raced around the compound, talking with every available scientist as he tried to work out what our next step should be, there was nothing else for me to do but head around after him and find out what I could about the colony's daily activities. It was a relatively simple task, but with the rest of the base's staff needed to go over what they'd found recently and see if they had anything that could help cure this 'disease', I had to appreciate that I was the 'expendable' person here for something this relatively minor.

There were apparently a few additional research teams scattered around the planet on more long-term survey missions, but the senior staff and I were soon able to get in touch with them and share the details about what had happened here to ensure that they didn't come back to the base on short notice. The Doctor had left me to take charge of the communications room and explain the situation if anyone else tried to contact the base while he worked on analysing the condition of the infected with some of the colony's other physicians, but I wasn't sure if even they believed that they'd work out anything new.

As I finished my last broadcast to the furthest-away survey team, I leant back in the communication tower and sighed in frustration; I might have done what I could to make sure that nobody else fell victim to this until we could find a 'cure', but that didn't make it any easier to

"Hey," Andy's voice said, interrupting my train of thought as I looked up to see him walk into the control room. "How's things?"

"Spoke to the last survey team, and the quarantine beacon seems to be running smoothly," I replied, indicating the relevant controls; it was a small role considering the potential scale of our current crisis, but it was nice to feel like I was able to do _something_ in this mess. "How's things at the hospital?"

"It's… well, about what you'd expect," the young man replied, shaking his head as he sat down beside me. "The survey team aside, the rest of us don't seem to actually be affected by the radiation yet, but there's definitely _something_ going on in our cells, and the medical staff haven't been able to work out any kind of immunisation for it."

"Nothing?" I asked in surprise; I may not know much about medicine even in my own time, but I would have thought that the future would be able to offer more than what we apparently had so far.

"Anything we might try just runs the risk of making this thing more efficient," Andy explained grimly. "From what we've seen so far, whatever's causing all these mutations is _really_ good at adapting to damage while it's healing its 'hosts'; we might be able to slow or stop it in one person at a time, but now that we're all exposed to it, anyone we cured would probably just get infected all over again and this thing would be immune to what we did the last time."

"Really?" I said. "Even in other people?"

"Well, that's what your teacher speculated, anyway," Andy said, looking at me in surprise. "He didn't tell you?"

"I'm… dealing with things here," I said, taking a moment to think before I made my decision and stood up. "Actually, could you maybe… take over here?"

"Uh… sure," Andy said, nodding uncertainly as he moved to sit in my vacated chair. "What are-?"

"I just… need to talk to the Doctor," I said, shrugging as I headed for the door. "I'd like to hear what he's got personally, you know."

I just hoped I sounded more confident than I felt; the Doctor might have introduced me as his student, but in this kind of situation I was _completely_ out of my depth…

* * *

"Bella?" the Doctor said, looking up at me as I entered the lab that had been set aside as an examination room for the original 'victims' of this thing. "How's things?"  
  
"Well, the research teams all know they can't come back yet; after that, I'm just… well, looking around to see what I can find," I said, looking curiously at the patients around us; their 'mutations' didn't seem to have become any worse, but I still felt uncomfortably exposed in this situation. "Shouldn't we be putting these people in quarantine or something?"  
  
"We're all already infected with whatever they brought in, Bella; quarantine at this stage wouldn't serve any purpose," the Doctor noted.  
  
"Good point," I said, before I remembered the original reason I'd come here. "Andy said that you told them not to try and treat this thing yet?"  
  
"Only until we can work out _what_ we're dealing with here," the Doctor clarified as he looked at me. "From what I've seen so far, this radiation is too powerful and having too significant an impact on us for it to be a simple natural development, so I have to assume that there's something artificial out there that can help whatever this is adapt to what we might throw at it."  
  
"And… you're sure about that?" I asked. "I mean, I know that you're old and intelligent and all that, but… look, you've never actually told me what you're a doctor _of_ …"  
  
"Bella, I may have completed my original medical degree under Joseph Lister, but I've picked up a few things since then; just because I never bothered to go on an official refresher course doesn't mean I'm not qualified," the Doctor said, looking firmly at me. "I've encountered everything from the common cold in the far future to a fully sentient virus that was trying to expand into our level of reality; I know enough to know when an exotic disease isn't going to be stopped just because we've treated this stage of it, particularly not something with _this_ kind of impact on human cells."  
  
"But what _is_ it?" I asked urgently. "I mean, I trust you, don't get me wrong, but I just… I don't know what we're _dealing_ with here!"  
  
"That's the annoying thing," the Doctor admitted, staring up at the ceiling as he snapped his fingers a couple of times, as though searching his memory. "I _know_ I've seen this somewhere before, I just can't remember where…"  
  
Looking sympathetically at my friend, I was reminded of the reasons why I wasn't going to be able to stay with him forever; as much as I cared about him, I wasn't sure if I could ever take the stress of the life he lived on a full-time basis.  
  
"Do you ever wish we could just fly away from our problems and let the world save itself?" I said, knowing as I spoke that it wasn't going to happen; even if we weren't almost certainly already infected by whatever had caused this, the Doctor would never abandon these people-  
  
"Fly away…" the Doctor repeated, looking at me with a broadening grin before he clapped his hands together with a broad grin. " _Varos_!"  
  
"Varos?" I repeated in confusion.  
  
"Where I've seen this before!" the Time Lord explained. "When I visited Varos a few lives back, the government were using a cell mutator known as the 'Transmogrifer' as part of their efforts to punish political prisoners; it unleashed all the potential power in the subjects' minds to mutate them based on their self-perception."  
  
"And that did… _this_?" I asked uncertainly, indicating the mutating patients around us.  
  
"This fits the pattern, anyway," the Doctor explained. "The governor told me that they first observed the radiation in action when their miners began to develop claws to dig more efficiently, and when Peri was exposed to it she started mutating into a bird-like state in response to her instinctive desire to fly away from her problems."  
  
"Peri?" I repeated.  
  
"My companion at the time," the Doctor explained. "Once I stopped the process she returned to normal quickly enough."  
  
"OK, that's good, right?" I said, smiling hopefully. "I mean, if you've stopped this thing before, you can do it again, right?"  
  
"I… I don't know," the Doctor said, groaning in frustration as his initial high faded. "When Peri was exposed, I was able to save her just by destroying the controlling computer and halting the bombardment, but if the version responsible for this is so powerful it's contaminating people even when they aren't anywhere near it, there's no way of knowing if that could work, even if I could _find_ whatever's controlling it now…"  
  
"But maybe we could work it out now that we know what's causing this?" I asked, unwilling to give up on the idea that we had a potential solution for our current problem. "I mean, you encountered this before-"  
  
"At the time, I didn't have the time to examine what kind of radiation they were using to trigger those mutations, and the person responsible for the program even admitted that he didn't know much about the finer details of the process himself," the Doctor said, shaking his head at the memory. "There was so much to solve on Varos, and so little I could really _do_ there…"  
  
"I'm sure you did what you could-" I began.  
  
"I spent so much time running around there, and all I could do in the end was keep Sil busy until his company had to take whatever deal they could get for Varos's exports," the Doctor said, shaking his head in frustration as he bent over in his seat. "I do my best, but sometimes all I can do is show up and make things more complicated so better people can work for change…"  
  
"But they wouldn't _have_ that chance if you didn't give it to them," I said, glaring firmly at my friend as he looked back up at me. "Maybe you're not suited to be a long-term leader, but who cares? You're not out here to rule anything; you travel to _see_ everything and help out where you can! Nobody _expects_ you to stick around and clean up all the time-"  
  
"But maybe I should do it sometimes," the Doctor said, looking up at me with a wistful sigh. "My people avoided intervention in the old days because it was so easy to get wrong, and I like to think I'm right to trust the people I save with making their own destinies later on… but still, maybe I _should_ take more care now and again…"  
  
As he waved his hand in frustration, I heard something crack behind me. Glancing around, I noticed that a small plant that had been left in one corner of the room had suddenly grown to cover that entire part of our makeshift infirmary, growing to at least twice its original height and size.  
  
"What the-?" I said in shock.  
  
"Oh no," the Doctor said, looking between his hands and the expanded plant. "I… I think that was me."


	5. The Gene Splicer

Once we'd identified the area where the miners had been digging, it didn't take long for the Doctor and I to work out what we wanted to do next. It was far enough away that we had to borrow a transport module in order to get there in enough time to make any real difference, considering that the original miners were still mutating and our own changes couldn't be that far behind, but the Doctor was confident that he could work something out once he'd learned what we were working with. After a few conversations with the facility's senior staff, we had made all the relevant arrangements and were on our way to the 'mine' that they had working before this happened.

"So…" I asked, looking awkwardly at the Doctor as he sat at the steering wheel, still flexing his fingers anxiously over the object in his hands, "how are you doing?"

"I'm working on maintaining my focus," the Doctor smiled back at me, even as he kept his gaze fixed on the rough path ahead. "Just don't distract me, and we'll be fine."

Accepting his brief comment as the warning it probably was, I turned my attention back to the road, letting my mind wander for a moment as I looked at the scenery around me.

If it wasn't for the risk that we would find ourselves dealing with something capable of causing mass mutations soon, I would have enjoyed the sights more, but even with that ominous thought, I had to admire the view of the planet around us. I'd appreciated the sights around the colony when the TARDIS had initially landed, but it was becoming clear that the colony, which probably selected as a particularly interesting site, was far from the only such location on this planet. The two suns and the other planet still dominated the sky, but the trees around here were notably smaller than where the TARDIS had landed originally, along with various smaller plants scattered around the grass, some kind of rodents running around that I couldn't identify while strange, multi-winged birds swooped down to either take the flowers or .

I wasn't even a biologist and I could appreciate why this place was so engaging for the scientists; once we'd sorted out whatever was causing this evolutionary mutation, I was going to enjoy the chance to spend a couple of days here…

"We're here," the Doctor said, bringing the vehicle to a halt as he looked at the deep pit in front of us, surrounded only by a few fragile trees and some smaller plants. Getting out of the vehicle, I took in our destination, but couldn't see anything to distinguish it from the various quarries and mines I'd seen in films or on the news back on Earth; the rocks were maybe a different colour than I would have expected of an Earth mine, but the expedition couldn't have gone to all these lengths just because of slightly different rocks.

"Is there a particular reason for the expedition to be so interested in the rocks around here?" I asked the Doctor.

"Apparently there were some interesting readings detected in this area; they sent out a survey mission to see what they could find, in case it turned out to be some kind of power source," the Doctor explained, even as he began to walk towards the nearest cave. "All their reports stated that they were making progress in finding the source, but there wasn't anything specific about what they'd found before that last team came back…"

"In other words, we now know as much as they do," I shrugged. "Well, at least we've caught up."

"So what do you think?" the Doctor asked, indicating the tunnel with a slight smile. "Into the caves?"

"Where else?" I replied, returning the Doctor's smile with one of my own, hoping that my fears about this weren't as obvious to the Doctor as they felt to me; even if I knew this was the only way, going _closer_ to the thing that was causing everyone here to evolve sounded dangerous…

I shook my head in frustration; no matter how dangerous it was, I wasn't going to let myself be held back any more. Edward had tried to protect me from pain and all he'd done was make it worse when he left; I was never going to get anywhere if I didn't trust myself and others to handle the problem facing us right now. As the Doctor walked into the cave, I took a moment to collect myself before I walked in after him, surprised to find that it wasn't as dark inside as I'd expected.

"How does this work?" I asked, indicating our strangely-illuminated surroundings.

"I'd like to say that it's something in the rock, but at this point there's no way to be sure," the Doctor said, his tone unusually solemn as we advanced into the mine. "It could be that whatever's causing the mutations has infused some kind of energy into the walls that's causing this glow, but it could also just be that we only _think_ it's glowing."

"Why would we- oh," I realised, answering my own question. "You think that this is because the mutation effect is improving our night-vision?"

"It's as good a theory as anything," the Doctor said, looking back at me with a solemn nod before he shrugged. "Well, either way, we can't change that, particularly now that we're here."

Even if the possibility of my changing vision unnerved me, I had to admit that the Doctor had a point; whatever the reason for our ability to see down here, we couldn't do anything about it now except keep moving and find what we were looking for. Taking a deep breath to calm myself at the thought that I was being changed against my will, I kept on walking after my friend, the tunnel briefly narrowing until it became wider and smoother, until we finally reached a large cavern, with a massive machine at the end that could only be what we were looking for.

I didn't need the Doctor's experience with alien technology to know that humanity couldn't have built something like what we were looking at. The device had a wide variety of panels and levels arranged around a central chair, spread out in a manner that made me think of the TARDIS console if it was arranged in layers rather than a circular pattern, with large tanks filled with some kind of strange liquid on the exterior of the panels, their contents predominately green in colour even if they altered in shade as we watched. Large metal tubes extended out of the top of the console, with strange fragments of blue crystal sticking out of it at various points before the tubes reached the cavern ceiling.

"Wow," I said, lost for anything better to say.

"Of _course_ …" the Doctor said, grinning as he took in the object before us. "It's a _gene splicer_!"

"A gene splicer?" I repeated.

"Pretty much what it says on the box; it splices genes with other species in order to create something new," the Doctor said, eyes narrowing as he studied the equipment more closely. "Of course, this thing was probably modified to use the transmogrification radiation for new results, which may explain what we've been dealing with up there…"

"On that topic," I asked, looking uncertainly at him, "wouldn't someone have found something like this… well, at the top?"

"Not necessarily," the Doctor said as he continue his analysis. "You have to keep in mind that we're dealing with advanced technology here; those tubes may just lead into the earth and transmit their energy through the ground rather than actually expelling anything into the air."

"Fair point," I nodded, before looking at the Doctor with new curiosity. "So… if you know what this is, can't you just… turn it off?"

"Unfortunately, no," the Doctor said, shaking his head grimly as he studied the machine's control panel. "It looks like whoever built this thing was at just the wrong stage of civilisation when they started something like this…"

"What?"

"Smart enough to make something this complex, but not smart enough to make it simple for all to use," the Doctor explained. "This thing has all the bells and whistles of the standard gene splicer-"

"A gene splicer is _standard_?"

"Once you've seen enough advanced technology, Bella, you realise that there are only so many ways everything can come together; think of it like computer manufacturers back on Earth, each creating their own type of operating system that does fundamentally the same thing in different ways," the Doctor explained. "As I was saying, the problem is that whoever created this thing made it just a bit too complicated; I can see what it is, but even if I can assume it's similar to the Transmogrifier on Varos, I can't see how to definitively turn it off without making its changes permanent, and that's the best-case scenario."

"OK," I nodded in understanding. "So… what now?"

"Well…" the Doctor said, nodding thoughtfully as he studied the equipment for a moment before he smiled at me. "I _do_ have one suggestion, but it involves bending the rules of Time a bit…"

"Don't we always?" I asked.

"Fair enough," the Doctor nodded with a smile, indicating the passage behind us. "In that case, we should be off; if we're going to tweak with history like this, the sooner the better."

"Right," I nodded, as we turned to hurry up the passage. "So what's the plan?"

"What else?" the Doctor replied. "Since we can't turn it off now, we're going to go back and ask the designers for the command codes themselves."

"You mean… visit this planet's original inhabitants?" I looked at the Doctor in surprise. "You didn't saythat someone had lived here before-"

"Because I've never heard anything about this planet having a native sentient species on it before now," the Doctor said, before shrugging as we reached the surface. "Still, as long as we're here, all we have to do is go back to a point when that machine was newly-constructed; shouldn't be too difficult to work it out from there."

Privately, I suspected that the Doctor was exaggerating how easy it would be- if something had happened that completely wiped out all trace of whatever civilisation had built that thing, it was a safe bet that it was a very big event- but right now, I knew that we didn't have an option.

So far my changes had been kind of cool, but if they went too far, or if the _Doctor's_ changes progressed any further…

We were going to be in _very_ big trouble.


	6. Changing Travel Methods

As much as I feared the potential consequences of our mutations, I had to admit that the current panic at least made things easier for the Doctor and I to get around. Once we were back within sight of the research base, the Doctor had just parked our vehicle and turned back towards the hills where he'd left the TARDIS, leaving me to hurry after him at a controlled pace.

As I felt my body trying to move faster, I suddenly found myself marvelling even more at the Cullens' restraint; I knew that I wasn't as fast as they could be, after seeing how effortlessly Edward had moved to save me from that car, but the idea that they spent so long 'restricting' themselves to blend in…

Their self-control was remarkable for more than just their decision to abstain from blood.

"Doctor," I looked curiously at him, suddenly eager for something else to think about that wasn't the Cullens, "there's one thing I don't get."

"Yes?"

"Why would anyone create something like this gene splicer thing on _purpose_? If this was just some kind of side-effect of… I don't know, gene therapy for diseases or something… I could understand that, but this just…"

"You have to remember that we're dealing with a literally alien psychology, Bella," the Doctor smiled at me, even as his eyes appeared grim. "Some people might feel it's their right to do for themselves what evolution doesn't seem willing to do for them, some might build complex machinery just to see if they can, and sometimes… well, the reasons vary, and they aren't always good, but they always have them."

"Tinkering with DNA just because you think you can," I said, looking at my arm in thought as I considered what was happening to my own body on a level I wasn't even aware of right now. "I guess it's like _Jurassic Park_ ; people get so caught up in thinking about whether they could they don't stop to think about if they should?"

"Good assessment," the Doctor nodded at me in approval. "You know, Crichton's one writer I've admired but never managed to meet; I really should work on that at some point…"

His train of thought abruptly shifted as the TARDIS came into view in front of us, its reassuring blue shape leaving me with the familiar feeling of safety I always felt when I saw the ship.

We might not be ready to leave this planet yet, but once we were inside, it shouldn't take us long to find out what we wanted to know and turn that stupid machine off…

My thoughts were interrupted when the Doctor stepped back from the door, looking apprehensively between the key and the lock. "Ah."

"Ah?" I repeated, my own anxiety rising at the sight of the Doctor's own uncertainty. "What's 'ah'?"

"I think I underestimated just how powerful that gene splicer is," the Doctor said, looking awkwardly at me. "It's starting to affect _every_ living thing on this planet."

"OK, but we already…" I began, before I realised what the Doctor meant. "Hold on; are you saying that the _TARDIS_ is _evolving_?"

"I did tell you it's alive-"

"But it's already the most advanced time machine in the universe; what _else_ can it evolve into?"

"That's what worries me," the Doctor said, looking anxiously at his ship. "Right now, I'm just hoping that the old girl's only locked us out because her interior dimensions are in a state of flux trying to cope with whatever's being done to her; if she reaches a higher level of awareness, she might just take off without us altogether…"

"OK, that's bad, but there must be _something_ we can do to stop it!" I said urgently. "Couldn't you just reprogram that thing here?"

"If it was any other kind of advanced technology, I'd give it a shot, but when it's already triggering mutations like these, I wouldn't want to risk it," the Doctor said grimly. "Trying to reprogram advanced technology is always risky, and when we're talking about something this sophisticated, it becomes even more dangerous even before we factor what it can do into the picture. Even if I can turn it off, we have no way of knowing how that will affect the changes that have been carried out already; will we just return to our original DNA, will we be stuck as we are now…"

"Will we continue to evolve into… something else?" I finished for the Doctor, unable to stop myself shuddering at the thought; becoming a vampire might have been a shock if I'd been able to win Edward over, but at least I would have _chosen_ to become that, rather than whatever this was doing to me.

"One of the possibilities I have to consider," the Doctor said grimly.

"Couldn't we get some of the people here to help?" I asked desperately. "I mean, they're all geniuses-"

"Human geniuses," the Doctor said grimly. "And that's not intended as a criticism of what they're capable of mentally, Bella; it's just that they're biologically more vulnerable to what this thing's putting out than I am."

"You let _me_ get close to it-!"

"You're protected from most infections by your time in the TARDIS; even if we could get inside the old girl, it would take too long to grant them the same kind of resistance that you've gained since you started travelling with me, and we can't be sure what effect it would have on them when they're already contaminated by something like this anyway," the Doctor clarified, shaking his head in frustration as he leant against the ship. "Come on, old girl, can't you give me a sign of some sort…?"

_Sign_ …

"Hold on a minute…" I said, looking at the Doctor with a dawning grin. "We don't _need_ the TARDIS…"

"We don't?" the Doctor repeated, looking at me in confusion.

"Of course we don't!" I grinned at him. "We've got _you_!"

"Me?"

"We already know that whatever's happening to you is letting you manipulate time around you somehow; why shouldn't that translate into letting you travel in time _yourself_?" I asked. "I get that it could be… well, complicated, but you've been travelling in the TARDIS for centuries; you've got to have _some_ idea of how to send yourself back that far, right?"

"Well…" the Doctor said, looking at me with a very ambiguous expression as he considered my suggestion. "I suppose if I focused on turning that temporal acceleration ability back on myself and then inverted it outwards… worked out how to generate a burst of temporal energy to send myself back without doing anything to my own physical age in the process…"

"You could take us back on your own?"

"'Us'?" the Doctor repeated, looking sceptically at me. "Bella, this could be dangerous-"

"And I was safe stuck on an alternate Earth where you never existed?" I pointed out. "I _know_ this isn't going to be safe, but we don't exactly have time to find something else; can you do it, or not?"

The Doctor stared at his hands for a few moments, before he nodded in resolution.

"It's a risk, but it's the best chance we've got," he said as he turned to hold his hands out in front of him, focusing on something in the distance before he looked at me. "Coming along?"

"Where else would I go?" I asked, hoping that I sounded as confident in the Doctor as I was trying to; we were about to attempt something that would be difficult at best, but if the Doctor believed that _I_ believed in him, that had to help his chance.

As the Doctor's hands began to glow a strange reddish-blue, I just hoped this didn't end up backfiring on me…


	7. Confronting the Past

For a moment, as I stood with my hands on the Doctor's shoulders while my friend focused on his own hands, I wondered if this idea was even going to work. I trusted the Doctor's knowledge of time, but knowing about water didn't mean that you could automatically swim, and this was far harder than trying to do a length of the pool…

Just as I was about to ask the Doctor if he wanted to try the door of the TARDIS again, the glow around his hands suddenly expanded outwards, and I found myself staring at a swirling red energy that turned blue as the Doctor and I fell towards it. Unable to do anything but tighten my grip on the Doctor, I closed my eyes and prayed that my faith in my friend was justified; I had no idea where we were right now, but if the Doctor couldn't get us out of it…

The strange sensation of whatever-it-was around me suddenly came to a halt, as I looked out to find that we had arrived somewhere else. The suns and planets in the sky were still the same as they'd been earlier, but where we had been standing in a thick forest near the TARDIS, now we were in what I could only think of as some kind of grove, with smaller trees planted in neater rows and some kind of fruit blooming at the top.

Looking at the sight below us, I quickly saw that the research colony that had been there before had been replaced by a far more advanced city, with buildings that reminded me of the upper half of eggs with various ascending towers sticking out of the top bit. Taking in the rest of our new location, I was surprised to see that, while the hills and valleys of the landscape seemed somewhat familiar, the trees were far shorter than the massive structures the Doctor and I had encountered when the TARDIS materialised, and there was a coastline in sight that I knew hadn't been there earlier.

"Where are we?" I asked, stepping back from the Doctor as I glanced around to note the distinct lack of animals compared to our earlier arrival; I could only see one creature, and that looked more like a racoon than anything else, rather than the multitude of many-limbed animals we'd seen in the future.

"Basically where we were, a few thousand years ago," the Doctor replied with a shrug.

"Just a few thousand?" I said, taking a moment to remember some of my old biology lessons before I spoke again. "But… these plants grew that much in a few thousand years?"

"The gene splicer must have accelerated the evolution of the plant life here even after the native population… well, did whatever they did to stop it affecting everything automatically?"

"OK…" I nodded, not sure about that explanation but knowing I couldn't suggest anything better. "And that's why nobody found any ruins of… well, all that?"

"Nature can do a lot of damage on her own when she's left alone for a few hundred years, and we just travelled back a few thousand; I'd be impressed that the splicer still works, if it wasn't for the fact that those things are designed to be resilient," the Doctor explained.

"So… if the machine affected the plants and animals, why didn't it start affecting us?"

"I'd guess the machine reached a point where it couldn't influence anything left on the planet and just went into some kind of standby state until it was exposed to something it could alter," the Doctor explained. "Once the original life-forms here reached a certain point, everything left had probably evolved as far as it could and developed some form of immunity to the machine's influence."

"Hold on; you're saying… the animals evolved an immunity to something like this?" I asked, unsure if the Doctor was joking. "I mean, this is… it was _manipulating_ evolution already…"

"Mother nature has its tricks," the Doctor smiled at me. "Really, you'd be surprised what can crop up over the centuries; I know one planet where the local equivalent of the jellyfish has evolved an awareness of reality shifts because its homeworld is near a temporal rift."

"Ah," I said, wondering what Carlisle would make of that kind of evolutionary quirk. "I don't know if that's cool or weird…"

My voice trailed off as I glanced up and saw the twin suns of Primator once again, suddenly remembering what the Doctor had told me when we'd arrived. "Hold on; if we're in the past, what about that… solar radiation field you mentioned?"

"That was only a problem for long-term exposure after the colonists settled here; we're not going to be here long enough for it to be a serious issue for either of us."

"You're sure?" I asked, suddenly tempted to slip back into the casual banter I'd come to enjoy about my time with the Doctor. "I mean, we _do_ tend to run into trouble…"

"We'd need to be here for a week before the radiation became a serious threat, and that's only if we spent all our time outside; we have a specific goal that means we need to be inside most of the time, so we'll be fine," the Doctor said firmly, looking down at his hands as he flexed his fingers, a reddish-blue glow surrounding the, before he nodded. "Good; that's still fine."

"What is?"

"Our DNA is still affected by the splicer's influence from the future," the Doctor confirmed. "I'm not sure what kind of state it's in here, but the point is that I can still take us back so long as I don't push myself too hard; if we give these changes too much leeway…"

"We could change so much we can't go back?" I asked, suddenly remembering some of the stories Edward had told me about how vampires changed from who they'd been as humans after the transformation.

"Possibly," the Doctor said grimly. "So long as we keep focused…"

"Who are you?" an anxious voice said from behind us. "Where did you come from?"

Turning around, I was surprised to see a well-built humanoid standing behind us, wearing dark robes over thick black boots. The figure looked male, but he had dark blue skin, strange dark tentacle-like things under his chin, and two extra sets of arms under what I could only think of as his 'human' arms, as well as a long purple tail-thing sticking out of his back.

"That's a bit of a long story…" I began awkwardly.

"And normally I'd love to tell it to you," the Doctor put in, "but right now time is short for more reasons than most people could understand, so could you possibly tell us where I might talk to someone who knows something about… genetic manipulation?"

Under normal circumstances, I would have been more anxious about the Doctor bringing up something that significant this quickly, but we didn't have time to beat around the bush.

"Again?" the man said, looking at us with a new sense of frustration. "I keep telling the Cardel that we're doing all we can to deal with the situation; that's why I'm out here in the first place! I appreciate that your conditions are extreme-"

"Oh, we're not your people," the Doctor smiled politely.

"Excuse me?" the man said, looking sceptically at the Doctor. "Like I said, I understand that your conditions are extreme, but you're still Telomrians-"

"We're not Telomrians, actually," the Doctor clarified. "We're from the _very_ distant future, at a point when… well, your people have moved on to other things; we uncovered your equipment and… after I manifested the power to manipulate time, we came back here to find out what happened."

"You… travel in time?" the man said, looking uncertainly at the Doctor. "And you are… not Telomrian?"

"Like I said, it's centuries from now, so don't ask me what happened between then and now; all that matters is that our people landed on your planet and are currently falling victim to a gene splicer you created," the Doctor said, looking at the man with a firm tone that made it clear he wouldn't answer any questions that didn't relate to his current topic.

"So… you're from the _future_?" the man looked at us in surprise. "You mean-?"

"As I said, we can't tell you too much about what's coming for your people, mainly because we can't be _sure_ of anything," the Doctor said before the man could ask any further questions, projecting a firm tone that I could only hope would make his point without needing to deal with any further questions. "All that matters right now is that we have come here to find out why the gene splicer was created and what we can do about it; believe me, you don't want to know more than that."

"You don't know why it was _created_?" the man looked at us, his tentacles twitching in a manner that somehow struck me as indignant even if I hadn't encountered his species before. "We go to all that trouble to overcome our physical limitations, and now nobody knows?"

"Your limitations?" I repeated, looking him over in confusion. "You look fine to-"

"Of _course_ ," the Doctor snapped his fingers as he smiled at our new acquaintance. "I'm guessing that your species' evolutionary potential meant that your mental development took priority; the best way to survive on a planet where everything's evolutionarily designed for speed would be to think of strategies to get away from anything bigger or naturally faster…"

He looked at the man with a smile. "So you reached a point where the splicer was the best way to compensate for your physical limitations on relatively short notice?"

The six-armed man looked appraisingly at us for a few tense moments, before he sighed and nodded.

"You are… correct," he said, looking solemnly at the Doctor. "I am Frodecker; at the present, I am the leading authority on the gene splicer… which isn't saying much."

"Isn't saying much?" I repeated in surprise. "That's pretty impressive-"

"Unless you only reach that level because everyone who was more qualified isn't available," Frodecker interjected grimly.

"Ah," the Doctor said. "They fell victim to their own hubris?"

"I would prefer to think of it as us underestimating ourselves," Frodecker corrected, even as his manner made it clear he didn't hold the Doctor's words against us. "They spent so much time working with the machine that its effect on them was particularly pronounced; by the time we appreciated what had happened to them, they had already evolved past the point where there was anything left of… well, what they were."

"I see," the Doctor said, looking thoughtfully at Frodecker. "I take it you were involved in the creation of the splicer?"

"I wrote some of the operating code for the system, yes."

"Which means you had access to the command codes for the programming… so if you're still conscious, why is the splicer still a problem if you have the ability to turn it off?"

"Because I can't."

"Come again?" I asked.

"By the time we realised what the splicer was doing to our genetic structure, the damage was too far gone for us to simply solve the problem by turning the machine off," Frodecker explained. "If we'd realised the scale of the problem earlier, we might have been able to do that, but as it is, our bodies have become so used to the energies generated by it that we literally can't deactivate it without putting our cellular stability at risk; it has even begun to affect the evolutionary patterns of the local wildlife, despite our attempts to compensate so that it would only adjust our own DNA to a certain degree."

"I take it you're out here looking for samples to try and work out how that happened?"

"Precisely; even if I cannot prevent what has happened to the creatures, I may be able to determine how to design something that will limit any future changes."

"So… to be sure I understand, the splicer's had a broader effect than you were expecting, and now you can't just turn it off because you're… genetically addicted to it?" I asked uncertainly.

"Not entirely, but as good a term for it as anything," the Doctor nodded at me before he looked back at Frodecker. "Well, I can understand that issue, but surely you should have been able to adapt the machine to compensate for that _before_ turning it off?"

"I only wrote part of the code; the scientist who developed the original concept… well, we're not entirely sure _what_ happened to him in the end," Frodecker shrugged awkwardly at us. "Our best theory is that he reached the peak of his physical potential and evolved beyond the need for a physical form; he was a natural intellectual anyway, so it would have been the most obvious change for him to undergo."

"Fair point, well made," the Doctor nodded. "And without him, you had no way to adapt the machine in that manner?"

"He was the only one who understand the subtle nuances of its operating systems, yes."

"So… is that why you _buried_ it to stop it?" I cut in, still confused about the main problem facing the Telomrians. "I get why you couldn't turn it off, but why not just destroy it?"

"For the same reason they couldn't turn it off; the abrupt loss of the signal it was generating could have had devastating effects on their cellular structure," the Doctor said, looking at Frodecker with a smile. "You buried it in the hope that the weakened signal would let your people wean yourselves off it, correct?"

"That is our hope, yes," Frodecker confirmed, looking solemnly at the two of us. "But if you don't know this in the future…"

"It could mean anything," the Doctor said. "Maybe your people recovered and moved on from this world, maybe you evolved naturally to a point where you don't exist in this state in our time… I can't give you any answers on that front one way or the other, but you _can_ help us deal with the splicer in our time before it can do to our people what it's done to yours."

Frodecker looked uncertainly at the Doctor and I for a moment, before he shook his head grimly.

"I can't do that," he said, looking firmly at the two of us. "And I can't let you leave."

"Excuse me?" the Doctor said.

"You're from the future," Frodecker said, reaching into his robe and drawing some kind of gun to aim it at us. "That means you know-"

"We know _nothing_!" the Doctor protested, moving to stand protectively in front of me. "We're from too far in the future to know anything about what's going to happen here; we're just here to get the codes-"

"But if I can find out how your people became exposed to the machine's influence-"

"Believe me, trying that is just _asking_ for trouble!" I protested. "I'm not even the time-travel expert and I know that won't work; you can't change history!"

"I have to try," Frodecker said, tightening his grip on his weapon as he raised it. "There is no price I wouldn't pay to help my people-"

Shaking my head in frustration, I charged forwards, grabbing the gun from Frodecker's hand and hurling it to the side before he could even realise I was doing anything.

_Huh_ , I thought, momentarily distracted at the speed of what I had done before I realised that Frodecker was trying to punch me with one of his other hands. As though I'd been doing it for ages, I caught that arm before forcing both of them back in such a manner that was able to grab his other four hands in the process, holding them all down by keeping pressure on the upper 'set'.

"Sorry about this," I said, acting nonchalant to conceal the fact that I was as surprised at what I'd just done as he was, "but while we appreciate your plight, we _really_ need those access codes, so give them to us now and this doesn't have to get any more unpleasant than it already is."

For a moment, Frodecker looked like he was going to try and break my grip, but a slight pressure to his wrist seemed to stop any thought he had of trying anything more, as he bowed his head in a clear gesture of surrender.

"Good," the Doctor said, reaching into his coat and pulling out a small notepad and pen, which he held out to Frodecker. "Bella will release one of your arms so that you can sign these for us… but keep in mind, one false action and nobody will like what happens next."

Nodding in understanding, Frodecker took the pen in the one hand I released and scrawled a long series of numbers and figures on it, which the Doctor looked over for a moment before he nodded.

"Thank you," he said to Frodecker, before glancing at me and tilting his head at our new acquaintance. Understanding his meaning, I released my grip on his hands and struck Frodecker in the head, knocking the alien scientist unconscious as he fell to the ground.

"He'll be all right?" I asked, looking anxiously at the Doctor.

"Considering what this planet's going through, he'll probably come back with a tougher skull after taking a knock like that," the Doctor smiled reassuringly at me before his expression became more solemn. "And I'm sorry that we had to do that-"

"Desperate times," I interrupted, not wanting to think about what I'd done any more than I had to; we might not be able to save these people without risking history, but that didn't mean I had to like the idea that we were essentially abandoning a planet to their fate. "Actually, we were really… lucky… to find this guy, weren't we?"

"Think of it like _Time Traveller's Wife_ , Bella; when I'm travelling in the manner that we used to get here, I'm instinctively focusing on the bigger moments and people of wherever I'm going," the Doctor explained. "For obvious reasons, I couldn't set my goal to a specific date, so I… _told_ the Vortex what I was looking for and it sent me here."

"You… told the Time Vortex where you wanted to go?" I asked in surprise. "I thought it was… some kind of other dimension…"

"That's just the simplest analogy for what I was doing; it's another case where English from your time doesn't really work to get the point across," the Doctor shrugged before holding out a hand to me. "The point is that my transformation gave me the senses I needed to find the right route to get from where we were to where we are, and I can use that same… knack to get back home so we can shut the splicer down."

"You're sure that code will work?"

"If it doesn't, we know where to go to double-check," the Doctor smiled at me. "But it seems straightforward enough; I was able to get a look at the splicer's operating systems, and computer codes follow a certain pattern once you know what to look for, even if expert insight is the only way to be sure we get it all right. The splicer's power must have worn down after being buried for so many years after the animals adapted to whatever influence it had on them at first, and obviously it was never designed to affect humans, so it's only dangerous now because it was discovered and exposed directly to the atmosphere, making it easier to spread its 'influence' again."

"I… see," I said at last, deciding not to question the issue any further as the Doctor tightened his grip on my hands. "And we're going to be in time? I mean, if these people became addicted to the splicer's energy…"

"The Telomrians must have been exposed to this level of radiation for some time before it became 'addictive'; the colonists can have only found it a day or so ago, and most people haven't come in direct contact with the splicer even if the radiation can still 'seep out', so I think we're safe enough."

In the end, all I could do was tighten my grip on the Doctor's hands and hope that his guesses on this particular topic were as good as they usually were when we didn't have anything else to work with.


	8. Resetting Evolution

As we reappeared beside the TARDIS, I smiled in relief at the sight of the familiar blue box; it might not be accessible until we'd turned the splicer off, but at least it meant we were home. Looking over at the Doctor, I was briefly anxious when I realised that his hands were glowing, but after a moment the glow faded and he was left looking the same as ever, even if there was still a gleam to his eyes that could have been glee or something else.

"We're back," he confirmed to my unasked question. "And only a few minutes since we left."

"Really?" I said, looking at him with a smile. "That's… neat."

"Having the old girl to home in on helps," the Doctor said, patting the TARDIS affectionately before his expression became more serious. "Now then, we need to get moving; I don't think the mutation effect's accelerated yet, but better safe than sorry at a time like this…"

Nodding in understanding, I hurried down the hill, jumped back into our small car and settled into the passenger seat as the Doctor strapped himself in and began to hurtle back down the path we'd followed earlier. With the Doctor's full attention on the road in front of us, I decided to use the opportunity to study our surroundings and compare them to what I'd seen of the planet in the past, pondering how much had changed in what was geologically a relatively small amount of time based on what I remembered from school. Even if the planet's alien ecology and the 'interference' of the gene splicer had caused most of the changes rather than the planet developing on its own, it was still fascinating to see how things could change on a larger scale.

One thing about time travel; it made it easy to see how things changed on a scale I could never have imagined possible before.

_Everything but the vampires_ …

When I thought about it that way, I was amazed that the Cullens hadn't snapped long ago; seeing everything around them change while they were condemned to remain the same, fixed in their own pattern of doing things with no hope of progressing further for very long, only able to change on a personal level under extreme circumstances…

It was strange, but I was suddenly left with a new understanding of Edward's depression about his state; it wasn't exactly an easy life, even if you didn't think about the issue of their diet.

That was probably why the Doctor liked travelling so much; he could live for centuries, but he was always able to find something new wherever he went…

"We're here," the Time Lord said, coming to a halt in front of the passage into the underground chamber. As soon as the vehicle had stopped, the two of us were running back down into the chamber we'd left earlier, swiftly reaching the complex machinery at the bottom that had caused all this trouble. With no sign of hesitation, the Doctor walked up to its control console and tapped at a few buttons, the machine sending out a strange new burst of what I could only describe as blueish-black energy before the glow vanished, leaving the machine looking somehow dimmer than it had been.

"It's done," the Doctor looked back at me with a casual smile.

"It is?"

"Bingo," the Doctor smiled. "That last energy burst was basically an anti-evolutionary purge that should undo all the evolutionary changes caused by the radiation so far, but after that I just need to give this thing time to cool down to be sure that we've dealt with everything before I dismantle it."

"What do we tell everyone?"

"That the mutations were caused by a unique form of radiation that we've managed to contain," the Doctor said firmly. "I'm fairly sure the colonists who originally found this thing will be so confused about what happened that they won't remember precisely what they found before they started changing; just don't reveal that it was caused by a machine that someone might want to analyse, and we'll be fine."

I had to agree with that assessment; even if the research colonists we'd met so far seemed nice enough people, that wouldn't stop the risk that someone else out there might find out about this thing and try and use it for their own purposes.

"So… that's it?" I asked, looking at the Doctor uncertainly, even as I felt my limbs lose some of the strength they'd recently possessed. "I'm not complaining about a simple end, but… we go to all that trouble, and all it comes down to is pushing a few buttons to save the day?"

"Oh, this is nothing," the Doctor smiled. "One time I had to spend thirty years travelling through various nether dimensions just to open my own door; at least everything was simple in all relevant areas this time around."

"Eh?"

"It's a long story involving Aleisteir Crowley, a creature that can basically be described as a demon, and an experiment in mind control that went wrong; believe me, even _I'm_ not entirely clear on the full picture," the Doctor said, waving a hand dismissively before he looked back at the path back to the surface. "Anyway, we'd better get back to the surface; the sooner we can make sure everyone's getting back to normal, the sooner we can get back to that vacation."

"Sounds good to me," I grinned as I followed the Doctor out of the splicer's underground chamber. We should probably see about getting this area blocked up or the machine dismantled to prevent this kind of thing happening again, but making sure the colonists were safe should be our first priority.

Maybe the main problem wasn't totally resolved yet, but if the Doctor was right, I had faith that the colonists' DNA would be back to normal sooner rather than later, and then the two of us would be free to move on once the TARDIS had stabilised from whatever had happened to it during this particular mess.

It had been a stressful day, but now that it was all over, I couldn't help but smile, for more reasons than just the fact that we'd saved the colony and gained some interesting insight into life on a fascinating planet.

If the mutations caused by the splicers drew on our subconscious desires, then it seemed like I was genuinely over my old interest in becoming a vampire. I'd been stronger and faster while I was under the splicer's influence, but I hadn't felt like I was moving at anything like the kind of speed that Edward and the other Cullens had been capable of, and I'd definitely felt a slight effort as I held Frodecker back. In other words, even on a subconscious level, all I wanted was to be more capable rather than vampire-level strong and fast, and that was more than I could have ever imagined myself being capable of accepting in the past.

I'd realised a long time ago that I didn't like who and what I'd been becoming when I was with Edward, but it was good to feel that I'd managed to move past that part of my life on every level.

I didn't feel an urgent need to go home yet, but I was starting to feel like I'd found what I'd been looking for when I'd met the Doctor…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To anyone who wants to know, the incident the Doctor mentioned with Crowley, demons, and mind control experiments occurred in the novel 'Heart of TARDIS'; basically, an old military experiment to use what was essentially a magical artefact to manipulate reality based on perceptions trapped an entire town in a pocket dimension created by a prototype TARDIS that was disrupted when the Second Doctor's TARDIS crashed into it. With the Second Doctor's TARDIS disrupting the dimension, and the Second Doctor unable to re-enter his ship due to that disruption, Crowley (who was possessed by a creature that is basically a demon) was able to capture the Fourth Doctor to deal with it. The crisis concluded after the Fourth Doctor travelled through various sub-dimensions for thirty years- fifteen to get there and fifteen to get back- to access the interior of the Second Doctor's TARDIS (only possible by making a more controlled entrance through the rift with another version of the TARDIS that caused the original disruption, hence why the Time Lords took such a risk rather than send someone else to do it) and restore the link to its outer plasmic shell, allowing the Second Doctor to re-enter the ship and rescue the town's inhabitants before the dimension collapsed without ever learning of his future self's involvement


End file.
